Sunset at Oia, Santorini

by docdivatraveller - 11/22/2016

Postcard like Oia

Just like Fira dominates the postcards of Santorini, Oia does too. In fact if you ever spot any picture of this volcanic island, its either Oia or Fira. I would say people are pretty partial with these places. There are many other places on this island that deserve to be represented as Santorini. However Fira and Oia are just too beautiful to face any competition. The bluest of blue water in the caldera on one side, whitewashed village on the other; blue doors and windows, blue dome churches and flowers all over. The features of these two places cannot be captured in words.

Blue Domes galore..

Oia has more edge over Fira. Firstly there are two ancient windmills over looking the caldera. There are more boutique hotels in Oia (read 1 lac INR per night ...eyes popping) and the iconic sunset of Santorini.

After spending the evening at Fira, Oia was next on our list. The sunset was supposed to be at 8 40 in the evening and we reached there at around half past seven. It was crazily crowded! The sunset of Oia is a world famous phenomenon. So there are hundreds of buses and ferries that bring tourists from all over the island and from other parts of Greece for the sunset.

I tried to make my way through the crazy touristy crowd while hubs struggled with his camera. There were photoworthy blogworthy locations everywhere! I mean literally everywhere! Every corner either had white urns or colorful flowers or blue doors or white walls or pretty vintage shops which were overflowing with beautiful trinkets! So where could I possibly cease clicking?

In love with the doors and urns

Trying to absorb the beauty all around, suddenly a thought struck our minds. It was almost dusk and sunset was just ten minutes away. We were no where in the vicinity of the caldera and hence the possibility of witnessing the sunset was distant! So we started making our way towards the cliff. Amidst the crazy crowd it was a herculean task navigating ourselves. We did not even know the way to the sunset point. We kept on asking the people nearby. In fact at one point we simply thought of going with the flow of crowd.

Just a glimpse of the crazy crowd!

Musicians at their best...

There are hundreds of sunset view points in Oia dotted along the cliff overlooking the caldera. We tried to get towards the nearest possible spot. As we made our way towards the caldera, we were shocked by the number of people there. Every good place was taken. Everyone was all sitting with their DSLRs (huge and huger cameras) positioned. Some were sitting with their wine glasses waiting for the sun to go down. The owner of the cafes were playing live soothing music.

Even we carved out a nice point for ourselves. The entire process of watching the orange sun going down into the caldera was ethereal. And the ending was even for spectacular. This is the only place in the world where the crowd lit up the atmosphere with a joint applause after the sunset. And believe me it was the most beautiful feeling in the world!